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SPEECH 


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MR. ARCHER, OF VIRGINIA, 


on 


THE RESOLUTION OF MR. CLAY, 


ptoorosixo SO TO 


AMEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES 


AS TO 


RESTRICT THE VETO POWER. 


DELIVERED 


IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 


February 9 , 1842 . 


WASHINGTON: 

printed at the intelligence a office. 


1842. 








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Mr. Argiier commenced by expressing apprehension that physical debility, the result of recent 
indisposition, might render him unable to convey to the Senate with the clearness and connexion 
he could desire, and with which they held their place in his own mind, the views he had been 
led to entertain on the momentous subject under consideration. He had not a great deal to say, 
for the question presented did not lie in a very large compass, though the considerations with 
which it was connected were very large indeed. 

These considerations lay at the root of our political systems—gave character and denomination— 
suggested the principle of real division to the parties, which belonged and must continue to belong 
to us, whilst freedom and its attendant parties remained among us. Starting from the acknowledged 
and primary principle of all free political institutions, the uncontrolled, uncontrollable popular au¬ 
thority to fashion, modify, destroy, reconstruct, remodel these institutions, fundamental and subor¬ 
dinate, at pleasure, it was susprising, said Mr. Archer, to see how immediately this very princi¬ 
ple, however fixed in the root., ran into division in the stem, and bore fruit of interminable dissen¬ 
sion. There was no political tenet—a doctrine at once, and a sentiment—which pervaded more 
extensively the popular mind, tinging the views even of the class which repudiated it in their 
' political conduct, than the dogma—the seemingly direct application of the principle of popular 
sovereignty—which required the popular will to remain as much unrestricted in the administra¬ 
tion, as it was confessedly superior to restriction, in the office of the formation of political systems, 
or their subjection to modification. This dogma, not in pretension only, but in essence and reality, 
constituted Democracy. It was neither consonant to just theory, nor had been found, or would be 
ever found, to operate beneficially in the practical application. It was the counter doctrine which, 
recognising the full authority of the People to make, alter, or unmake forms of government at 
pleasure, denied the obligatioti in a just view of theory, or the expediency as tested by experience, 
of its construction, in the form of a mere machinery, for the action of the transient popular will— 
which constituted Republicanism, as distinguished from Democracy. The two doctrines, so far 
from being, what perhaps the majority of men supposed, identical, were, on the other hand, in¬ 
compatible, and the phrase Democratic Republicanism, so much in use, a solecistic expression. 

This Democratic doctrine of the obligation of such a construction of government as to give effi¬ 
cacy to the transient popular will, was inconsistent with its own principle, and foundation of an 
unlimited popular sovereignty ; for the sovereignty could not be unlimited which was denied the 
competency to ordain restriction on its own action, us well as to prohibit and take precaution 
against this restriction, should expediency be deemed to demand the one rather than the other of 
these arrangements. Sovereignty in such a view would have to be regarded in the light, not of 
prerogative, but nuisance—as at war with the elementary purpose, and law’, indeed, of human as¬ 
sociation and advancement, which made all institutions a mechanism of convenience and utility. 
Nor would the highest improvement ef our time and country stand less condemned by this demo¬ 
cratic doctrine, the introduction of political constitutions, so justly boasted as superior to all other 
improvements, in the proportion of the influence which political institutions were found to exert 
on the condition and well being of society. For what were constitutional, as distinguished from 
the modes of free government, which may exist independently of constitutions ?—forms in which 
the popular will has not only prescribed channels and modes for the exercise of its deputed powers, 
but announced denials of power, and limitations in its exercise, even if demanded in the progress 
of administration by the public will. A constitution is, by the force of the term, a “confinement 
and putting into circumscription” of the popular will, involving no impairment of “right su¬ 
premacy,” because springing from its own ordainment and authority. And what is the ground on 
which, as the people may, they ought to constrain the action of their own will, in the adminis¬ 
tration of their affairs? No other but that all will unchecked is despotism. Nor w r as this less a 
truth (said Mr. Archer) in a popular than in a regal form of government. The wisdom of the 
framers of our admirable Constitution, and they were the wisest framers of political institution the 
sun had shone on, in his long career, appreciated w'ell this fundamental and invaluable truth. 
They had said to the people—for the people, you have the right to form a government which will 
be tyrannical if you please, but you do not please to do this ; arid all forms of government in which 
the Constitution is not stronger than the administrative power, are unbalanced forms, and there¬ 
fore necessarily despotic, and of consequence must become tyrannical, as all despotism runs inevi¬ 
tably into tyranny. If asked for the name of despotic government, no other than this definition 
could be given. We owed it to the mercy of Providence, however, that no such thing could 
have existence in practice, as a Government, in which the will of a mere numerical majority 
pure Democracy—could have steady and permanent prevalence. Where there was no written 
Constitution—only representative Government, tlft mere fact of representations would distinguish 



4 


it from every form in which the mere numerical majority held control. Did any one conceive rep¬ 
resentation no more than a device to give conveyance to this will 1 The mistake of such an opinion, 
would be great. Representation imported deliberation. When the People appointed Representa¬ 
tives, it was not to act only, but to think, too, in their places ; not to be mere machines, moved 
by their breath—the conduit pipes of their will—but in circumstances more favorable, with the ad¬ 
vantage of deliberation—advisement—to form a will for and in their stead, though always for their 
benefit. This derogation, if it were derogation, which it was not, (as the authority was unlimit¬ 
ed to reverse and undo,) from the supremacy of the popular will, was the inherent condition of all 
representation, for another cause. It was of the essence of legislation, to demand incessant com¬ 
promises, that is to say, the perpetual modification, and the frequent surrender of the opinion* 
and the desires, which the Representatives might bring from the People to the work of legislation. 
There could not only be none beneficial, but legislation would be infeasible altogether without 
this condition. Its whole theory was found, not in the necessary and perpetual, but in the fre¬ 
quent and large supersession of the popular will , and, what was more important, in the undoubted 
appointment of the administrators to the exercise of this office of control. And this was the basis 
(said Mr. A.) of all the forms of government which had been prepared for us. ? 

What are these forms] Did they appoint a single legislative body which would be the proper 
frame of a Government intended simply to carry out the will of a numerical majority ? No. A 
simple legislative body, consisting of one branch alone, was no subject of theory only; it had 
been submitted to the test of very abundant experiment. Ample trial had been had during the 
first revolution in France, and it proved to be the most detestable and atrocious of all the Gov¬ 
ernments of modern times. It had not only equalled, but surpassed, and put to the shame of an 
utter inferiority, the excesses of Tiberius and Caligula, Nero and Domitian. This experiment 
had been tried here too, on our own soil, under auspices the most favorable to success, in th« 
Quaker State of the confederacy ; and even with the countenance (so natural was the occur¬ 
rence of illusion in this matter) of the sober-minded Franklin. The result had not been similar 
to that in France, from the diversity in the attendant circumstances, but such as equally to 
admonish the renunciation of the experiment everywhere, in all time. In the palmiest moment of 
pristine simplicity, the race whose defining characteristic was quietude—toleration of authority in 
all modes of it—could not for more than a moment tolerate this form of a pure Democracy, or un¬ 
restrained effusion of the popular will, without any complication of a political machinery. He 
would put it to his friends of the Democratic party, (Mr. Archer said,) what the chance would 
be of the system working now, when the fountains of the great deep of bank corruption had been 
opened, to diffuse their waters of bitterness and corruption through the world ] 

We must renounce, then, the empiricism of an unrestrained action of the popular will in the 
structure of government. The main reason for this was, that the impetus would be found too vio¬ 
lent for justice, or even for peace, if not abated. What was the contrivance for remedy 1 To 
break the force of this impetus by division ! To provide more than a single channel to give con¬ 
duct to the stream ! To have two branches of legislation ! Was this all I No. The two cur¬ 
rents might become confluent in inundation. In seasons of great public excitement, the two rep¬ 
resentative branches, obeying the same popular impulse, might partake of intemperance—be hur¬ 
ried to overaction. Then the currents ought to run on different levels. The two branches, how¬ 
ever, derived from the same popular source, and designed for the same public ends, ought not to 
present the same access to the influence of overaction. Is countries in which a class of population 
was found, separated from the mass, by distinction of rank, engendering discriminations of feel¬ 
ing, even where there were none of interest, precaution on this point was not difficult. This 
class, or a representation from it, could be employed in this repellent, precautionary, and protec¬ 
tive discharge of the office of legislation. Under our forms of institution, the precaution was at¬ 
tempted, in the only mode of which the unity of character of our population would admit, by a 

provision derived from age and tenure of office, as regarded the second branch of legislature_of 

age so far advanced as to afford presumption against the easy access of intemperance—of tenure, 
which might afford the faculty of successful resistance, till the excitement had passed from the 
public mind, the political atmosphere become cleared, and the season restored for the tranquil and 
healthful action of the public will. 

With these guards, we had been able, in this eur Federal Government, to combine another, 
even more effective to the object, in the reference of the appointing office, as regarded the second 
branch of the Legislature, to the State sovereignties, unequal (and not prone, therefore, to violent 
or perilous combination) in population and extent. This provision of our Constitution has been 
the subject of much cavil, (said Mr. Archer.) But it was the best, the wisest, the most truly 
conservative, the most entirely admirable feature in that sublimest invention of all times, the insti¬ 
tution of constitutional federative Government—an invention by which whole continents of terri¬ 
torial surface—populations larger than existing or fabled in China—might be brought into frater- 
nization , not only without danger of the despotism which had been found attendant on Govern¬ 
ment extending over very large sphere, (and in the proportion of the extent of the sphere,) but in 
yeality with a lighter yoke of authority—with a more moderated intrusion into those recesses of 


5 


personal and domiciliary concern, from which it is the first of objects to keep the hand of Govern¬ 
ment away, than was presented, or could be, in the most approved systems of ordinary free Gov¬ 
ernments. 

These guards on the redundant action of the popular will were not deemed enough, in the wise 
conception of the contrivers of our Constitution. They constrained this will into several channels— 
separate streams—took precaution against the rapid or violent confluence of these streams. But 
the design was, not to obstruct entirely—(to frustrate the public will can never be the design of a 
free Constitution ;) it was to moderate the flow, till the proper point of reunion could be reached. 
Even then, so extreme was the peril and mischief of overaction, another guard was placed, a flood¬ 
gate, so contrived as still further to arrest the current, if it ran with undue force, till it deepened 
(if not diverted) into a volume, to which it was no longer allowable or safe to oppose obstruction. 
This further guard was the power of the qualified veto on legislation, reposited with the President. 
The question whether this last guard could be beneficially—not abolished, (that was not the scope 
of the proposition of his honorable friend from Kentucky,) but reformed—was that now presented 
for the consideration of the Senate, and to the discussion of which Mr. A. would proceed to ad¬ 
dress himself. 

Mr. Archer was aware that what he had been saying would appear to many abstract and 
inappropriate. But the principles relative to our institutions, which he had been stating, were not 
only important in reference to this question, but taking into view opinions which floated on the pub¬ 
lic mind, and formed the nucleus of party combinations, presented topics for discussion of far greater 
interest than the question. He should have no difficulty, however, in manifesting, very speedily, 
the application of these considerations to the question—a proposition which was, indeed, almost 
evident, inasmuch as a just and full comprehension of the grounds of the institution of the veto, 
must be regarded as necessary to a decision on the propriety of the retention or reform of it. 

It was a principle, (Mr. Archer went on to say,) beyond all comparison the most important in 
political science,, though one of the least observed, that, no matter what the structure of society 
or government in a State, the administrative powers of the Government never were really resident 
with the nominal administrators, or only for intervals very transient. This was true in all states 
of society, in all Governments, the most despotic as well as the freest. There was always a 
power able to control, ready to control, which, if obstructed, did exercise control on the adminis¬ 
trative functionaries; and, with inconsiderable exception, these functionaries, knowing these facts, 
shaped their administration in a steady deference to the views of this controlling power. This last 
or effective power did not always reside in the body of the community, as the first view would 
lead to suppose. On the contrary, it had been very seldom found to reside there; it was arranged 
by the condition of society, in that class, or those classes, which had been able to get command 
of the elements of political force—the physical and moral forces of the community. Even the ele¬ 
ment of physical force had been seldom resident with the body of the community, belonging to 
the classes w-hich had the arms to subdue, or the property to purchase, or the moral influence to 
win or manage the far larger number of their associates. In States purely despolical, the effec¬ 
tive authority was in the soldiery, who upheld the despot, or in the castes, social or religious, 
who controlled the prejudices of the soldiery. Nero could “ fiddle while Rome was burning,” 
which he had set on fire for his amusement. He could not command a single attendant to hold 
the dagger to his throat for suicide, after he had given disgust to the Praetorians, whose power, not 
his own, he had carried to such frantic excess. An Eastern Sultan may drive the wretched popu¬ 
lace submitted to him like oxen, or squeeze them like sponges, or slaughter them like sheep. 
Let him break with the Janizaries, or the Mufti, and a bowstring soon admonished him whose was 
the power he had been wielding as his own. 

We had at this moment an extraordinary evidence exhibited to us, in the greatest nation the 
world had ever seen, of the utter inefficiency of the administrative or nominal rulers of a Govern¬ 
ment, even backed by the most essential interests and uncontested wishes of the body of the com¬ 
munity, to resist the control of the predominating caste in this community. In a Government 
of monarchical form, not a new or tottering, but an old and a stable monarchy, we had just seen 
the monarch and her official administrators subdued , and the latter actually expelled from place, 
for an effort of deference to the clear interests and sense of the community. Would bread be 
sixty per cent, dearer amid a starving population than on a coast in sight—in London, than in 
Paris, a twenty-four hours’ journey—if the monarch, her adherence uncontested to the party who 
were for cheap bread, bore real sway in England ? 

As near an approach to a despotic authority as we had seen in any settled Government, in late 
times, attached to the administrative head, had been seen among ourselves, in the case of General 
Jackson. Was it authority of his own which bestrode and trampled on the land ? No! He 
was only the organ, the type, as he expressed it himself, the representative of the Democracy of the 
country, infusing its excited spirit into the arms, of colossal dimensions, which he stretched over 
the State. And these arms! were they guided by himself? Even by those around him, the most 
qualified to counsel, the best fitted to guide ? Aias, no! Instead of the Kendalls, the Blairs, et 
id omne pecus t had this royal puppet fallen into other and different hands, such as some ho 


6 


saw around him, his friend from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Bcchaxax,] from Alabama, [Mr. Kirro,] 
how different had been the result to the country—how much disaster had been saved—what 
amount of ignominy averted ! 

Tire natural law of the social development (said Mr. A.) assigned this effective power to the 
mass of property and intelligence in each State. But this mass was by no means necessarily 
coincident with the mass of the population. In our country, however, and perhaps in ours only, 
the fact of this coincidence was presented. The mass of property and intelligence, and therefore 
the social as well as political power, were resident with the mass of the population. Now the 
propositions (Mr. Ahchkh went on to say) which he had been desirous to establish, as the 
groundwork of the argument he had to present, were these: In all States there was a social 
power stronger than the Government, which in effect wielded the Administration, however the 
Government might be organized. This power (as was the nature of all power) would he engaged 
in perpetual effort to attract further authority ; or, if not, to bend the Administration which it 
controlled to subservience to its peculiar interests; or if its interests were not peculiar, then to 
its peculiar passions. Now this was a great evil, and demanded safeguards, if they could be ap¬ 
plied, whether the power resided with the mass of the community or a part of it—the object of all 
right Government, and, indeed, all social organization, being to arm inferior strength and minority 
interests with protection. We were bound, then, by the leading principle of all just political in¬ 
stitution, to set up these safeguards in our Government, against the injurious action of the pre¬ 
dominating power, though it was that of the majority of the community. Of those safeguards the 
veto power was one of those which we had, and as Mr. Aticheu thought properly, established. 

But this predominating power must have a peculiar organ in the structure of the Government, 
for the transmission of its influence and action. It was against this organ or department of the 
Government, therefore, that the guard must be placed, and in the hands of a weaker, or one not 
liable in the same degree at least, to the force of this influence. The Legislative body, or the 
more popular branch of it, would seem naturally to present this organ or department, and in the 
commencement of the operation of our Government undoubtedly it did. Any undue or over- 
violent action on the machine of Government was to be looked for from that source. Over 
against this quarter, therefore, the guard of the veto was to be planted. 

Since this period, however, and in the progress of the operation of the Government, unforeseen 
developments in the tendency of its action had been presented. It was no impeachment of the 
forecast of the framers of the Constitution, their failure to anticipate these developments in their 
extent. The occurrence of parties, the large influence of the contentious, overweening, selfish, 
proscriptive, tyrannical, unscrupulous spirit of domination which their collisions engender, no doubt 
were taken into account. But a very material circumstance had not been put at its just value. 
The effect of holding up every four years, not “ the 'likeness of a kingly crown,” but the reality of 
its prerogatives of distinction and patronage, to view and competition—the throwing down into the 
palsestra of popular contention; this golden premium and maddening incentive, could not be appreci¬ 
ated beforehand adequately, and had not been. The real effect had been to resolve all discussions of 
policy as well as party—the entire action of the People and the Government—intothe"'vortex of the 
Presideniial election. Opinions, principles, the sentiments of justice, the promptings of patri- 
' otism, all became merged in passion, of which, as regarded the successful party, the successful 
candidate was obliged to be the type, and his action the organ. Selected by this passion, he must 
be equally held, by his participation of it and his obligations to it, to be its active and little com¬ 
promising, if notits unhesitating instrument. This was notan accidental result. It was a perma¬ 
nent and necessary condition of the operation of the Government. Well, the design and office of 
the veto was a check on the over-violent action of the predominating influence of the State, the 
will of the numerical majority. It was to be placed ox that Department of the Government, which 
was supposed to represent this influence, and convey its action to the Government, and with that 
other Department, which was supposed a weaker representative of the same influence, or to be ex¬ 
empt from it. This was the theory, and the just theory. This was the arrangement, and the pro¬ 
per arrangement, made by the Constitution. 

But how stood the fact now, as ascertained by the progressive development of the action of the 
Government] Which was the organ now, which carried the dangerous, overweening influence, 
which poured the impetuous torrent of the will of the majority, chafed by obstruction, swollen to 
inundation, on the machinery of the Government] Which was the department that was made 
strong by this power] And which the department that was too weak to oppose resistance to it 
with effect] There were facts, said Mr. A., in our recent history, which spoke with melancholy, 
but conclusive demonstrativeness on this point. He referred to the memorable period of the re¬ 
moval of the deposites of the public money from the place of their lawful custody, by the order of 
Gen. Jackson. It was a period and an act of which he well retained, and should always retain, all 
the incidents in memory; for he regarded the period and the act as pregnant, beyond all others in 
our history, with consequences which were to give tone, perhaps destiny, to this Government. 

Hoc fonte, derivata clades, 

In patriam populum que fluxit. 


7 


It was from this salient point, that the philosophic speculator on the ruin of our federative 
system, in future time, would have to trace the progress of that disorder, in the balances of 4 the 
system, which was fraught with this result, whether by consolidation or dissolution. I was at 
that time (said Mr. A.) a member of the other House of Congress, and well remember the im¬ 
pressions which, on assembling, shortly after the act, members brought with them, of its character. 
I aver , that in the largest and freest communication, I met with no one member who did not give 
expression to reprehension. The grounds of this reprehension were various, indeed. By some, 
(myself in the number,) the proceeding was arraigned as an outrage on a primary and essential guar¬ 
antee of limited government. By others, as calculated to operate injuriously on the credit system of 
the country, as it did most destructively. By others, as involving gross circumstances of insult 
to the legislative body, independently of the usurpation of its jurisdiction. By some, as an indis¬ 
cretion, which threatened a shock to party ascendency. All blamed, none extenuated—effort was 
made in one branch of the Legislature to apply redress, to procure a reinstatement of the depo- 
sites in the legal depository. In the other branch, censure was proposed, vindicatory of the law 
and Constitution. With what results to these attempts ! The proposition to redress the ad¬ 
mitted wrong failed, and to have been aiding to it, put a political brand, by the end of the session, 
on the abettor, equivalent to a price set upon his head. The proposition of censure prevailed in 
the Senate, the real checking department of the Government. How short the time before this 
interposition, even of the mild check of censure, by the appropriate checking body, came to be 
treated as audacious, an act not to be annulled merely, but stigmatized (oh! opprobrium of our 
history) by its expunction from the records of the body. 

And was it the department of authority which was of force to achieve this triumph over the sense 
of the whole Legislature, to tread down the really checking department for presuming to exer¬ 
cise its checking office ? Was this the functionary which required to he armed with a veto on 
the Legislative body, for the counteraction of its excesses'! The office of patriotism'(said Mr. A.) 
in a constitutional Government, is not to lie down in supine adherence to the support of any 
member or power, which may have appeared at one time the weakest, and therefore^requiring 
support. What it demands is the preservation of the balance established between those mem¬ 
bers and powers, in which the essence of the Constitution and the realization of its benefit con¬ 
sist. Does the weak department become strong, the strong weak,the support must be transposed, 
'for the maintenance of equipoise. This was the just theory. This subject of the veto power 
afforded the just exemplification. The Legislature had been the strong power, prone to overact for 
itself, representing that influence in the State which was prone to overact on the Government. 
The check of the veto power had therefore been advisedly placed on it. The Executive had been 
supposed to be the weak power, demanding guard for itself, and in its hand for the balance of 
the Constitution. The guard of the veto had therefore been properly put into its hand. But, in 
the working of the system, the Executive had come to represent the overacting influence, had 
become the type and consubstantiation of that influence, enabling it to intrude on the other de¬ 
partments, rendering it irresponsible for intrusion. It no longer required this guard of the veto 
power for its own defence ! This guard could no longer be trusted with it, for the defence of the 
Constitution. The power had lost its character of a guard, had become an engine in the hand, from 
which aggression and disturbance must come, if they were to visit the Constitution. What was 
the conclusion ! Were not institutions held to defeasance with the failure ot the reasons for 
their establishment; and yet more in the perversion of their design! Ought they not, in any 
event, when they had been found in departure from that design, to be reformed into subjection to 
it! Now this was the purpose of the amendment of his honorable friend, in relation to this veto 
power; not to abolish, but to abridge, the power; to reform it from an absolute impediment to 
legislation, which it has undoubtedly become, to a qualified obstruction, for which alone it was 
confessedly designed by the Constitution. 

The object of the remarks he had been submitting, (continued Mr. A.,) had been to 
show that the veto power, as at present organized, and as it was found to work, had no 
claim to vindication, in the aspect of a check on the usurpation or overaction of the Legis¬ 
lature. The remarks which were to follow would have for their object to show that this 
power, from a check, had been transformed into an engine formidable to the independent action 
of the Legislature. This view had been opened in the argument of his friend from Kentucky, 
(Mr. Clay,) in the outset of the discussion, but not conducted to its full and forcible conclusion, 
as was common in his discussions. He had said that, by means of the exercise of this power, 
the Executive might attain an initiative in our legislation. An initiative on our legislation ! 
exclaimed Mr. Aucheii. The Executive, by the exercise of this power, may attain an initiative ! 
What he (Mr. A.) would undertake to demonstrate was, that it was control, not initiation, 
which might he attained, and that this control had been already reached, as respected a very 
important department of legislation. He would give the reasoning, and the fact3 too, to sustain 
these allegations fully and beyond dispute. Let us suppose (said Mr. A.) conjunctures of 
circumstances, and subjects of legislation, in which, and on which, legislation is very strongly 
demanded by the public exigencies, or by the public voice. These exigencies, this voice. 


8 


cannot be contemned by the legislative bodies. They mix with the people, and know the' 
exigency to be imperative—hear the voice, and know that it will not brook inaction. Con¬ 
gress convenes in these circumstances, under the influence of the temper they have inspired. 
They present, or wish to present, the subject of the desired legislation, in the form which 
communication with the people, familiarity with tne circumstances, instruct them to be the 
best adapted to the exigency, most approved or desired by the people. But the President 
has some theory or some commitment to oppose—some vindictive feeling, it may be, to indulgo 
*—a party to thwart or scourge, which has obstructed, or denounced, or renounced him, or which 
bethinks prepared, or preparing, to obstruct, or denounce, or renounce him. Or, having lost the 
favor of his proper party , he may have another to conciliate and win; or, having no party, 
which may well happen to an indiscreet man, giving disgust by perverseness, or a weak man, 
become President by accident , or a vain man , his head turned by elevation, he has a party to- 
make, which a person in either of these categories will never be found distrusting his capacity 
to do. Suppose a President in any of these positions. He applies the veto to the measure which 
public exigency demands, or an imperious public sentiment or apprehension is indulged of his 
doing so. What is the condition of the Legislature, deeply alive to the exigency of the crisis,, 
strongly impelled to find the means of action in some form, by popular instigation, by patriotic 
feeling, by party commitment, party policy ? What may be looked for as the course of its 
proceeding? Legislation must be had. Will the inquiry be, what is best? That by the terms 
of the supposition would be vain. The inquiry must be, what will the Executive accept? 
What are the modes by which he can be most successfully approached ? By what forms and 
degree of submission can he be conciliated ? By what terms of bargain and composition may he 
be wrought to yield a portion of the desired legislation ? Let us suppose him to be a vain man — 
he exacts a large oblation to his vanity; a vacillating man —he requires the oblation to be fre- 
quently renewed; an obstinate man, (~ which he may beat the same time that he is vacilla - 
tingj —he shapes his own terms; a designing man —he has the game in his own hand, to be 
played for his own ends. Experiments are first made to ascertain the extent of his opinions 
or determination, in the ordinary forms of legislation. These fail, then the approach must be 
by inquiring what will satisfy. Next, by intimations that modifications of terms will be accepted. 
Last, by direct request, that the legislation, matter and form, may be supplied. The legislative 
bodies are first abased, then evicted of their office. The'majesty of the popular representation, 
the dignity of the State sovereignties, are brought to the footstool of Executive tenacity, or 
policy, or passion, or pride, and bent to receive the law which the Constitution deputed them 
the authority to give. 

This picture of the submission and subservience to which, on exciting occasions of the exercise 
or apprehension of exercise of the veto power, the Legislature may, will probably be reduced, 
was not painted from fancy—unfaithful in the outline, exaggerated in the proportions. It was 
no more than a transcript of the exhibition at the last extra session of Congress, not yet perhaps 
terminated, in relation to the attempted legislation on the great subject of the currency. Congress 
had come together in a strongly excited state of the public mind, after a party struggle of unex¬ 
ampled intensity, attended with the most complete triumph. This subject of the currency, the 
most agitating topic of the controversy—the legislation to result from it, looked to as the most 
valued fruit of the success—the condition of the country justifying the solicitude, demanding 
the legislation. The popular feeling was fully partaken, the public exigency justly appreciated by 
Congress. The two Houses evinced themselves eager to enter on the task of duty assigned them, 
and mature with speed the fruit which was expected. They were met at the outset, however,, 
with intimations of obstacle to be apprehended from the veto of the President. The exigency 
was undoubted, the solicitude intense, that legislation should not be frustrated. What w'as the 
first step taken? To begin the exercise of our proper function—to digest a scheme of legisla¬ 
tion ? No ; to send to the President for his scheme, in the face of the first canon of legislative in¬ 
dependence, that the opinions of the Executive are not even to be known, much less consulted,, 
on the subjects of action. The President was compliant. The project came. It was not in¬ 
consonance with the views of the majority. In the Senate we proceeded to venture on the ex¬ 
ercise of our proper office, and digest a bill for ourselves. The project of the Executive was pre¬ 
sented as a substitute, and sustained, (save by the mover,) not on the ground that it was better— 
its inferiority was conceded—repugnance to its acceptance avowed—but that we were in the 
power of the veto, and, in discretion, must act as men who had shackles on our hands. 

He had no purpose, Mr. A. said, in referring to these measures, to discuss or to compare their 
respective merits or demerits. What he had in view was the illustration of his proper argument 
and position, of the control which might grow from the veto over the popular wishes and legis¬ 
lative action. He owed it to himself to say that he had signalized an implacable resistance, on 
the occasion referred to—one of the earliest in which his voice had been heard in this hall—to the 
principle of action invoked, and the concession which it demanded. A majority thought with 
him. The concession did not prevail. The substitute proposed to the bill prepared by the com¬ 
mittee of the Senate, and which embraced the views of the majority, was rejected. But did the 
bill of the majority therefore find acceptance ? Not at all ! Other modification was found una- 


voidable, to conform it to the Executive requirement, as the only means to pass it. The modifica¬ 
tion was made; the famous clause of compromise introduced ; the concession extorted to the- 
views of the Executive. And what was this concession—the character of this clause of com¬ 
promise, thus forced on adoption ! A nondescript altogether! It was impossible to give, 
because impossible to get, intelligible conception of it. The purpose seemed to be to mystify the 
concession purported to be made, so as to render it questionable or null; to gratify, but at the same 
time to frustrate; “to keep the word of promise to the ear, yet break it to the hope.” The point in¬ 
contest was allowed, then disallowed ; granted, but superseded ; taking a shape like Death in 
Milton, “that shape was none,” which “substance might be called, that shadow seemed;” 
4 * for each seemed either.” [A laugh.] 

And the bill, of which this anomalous provision was the leading characteristic, formed the fruit 
of the matured lucubrations of the Senate, presented to the craving importunities of the country 1 
And presented by whom! said Mr. Archer. Persons who did not comprehend and appreciate 
its futility! Legislators prone to undue compliance to Mr. Tyler! No. Legislators who held the 
same estimate of the compromise provision, and Mr. Tiler’s scruples; who, 

-“ in equal scales in air. 

Weighed the men’s wits against the ladies’ hair.” 

The weights proved unequal, however, as of yore: “The wits mount up, the hairs subside.” 
The scruples prevailed. The bill of compromise was rejected by the President. The bill, had it 
become law, in its improved form, could not (said Mr. A.) have commanded a dollar of sub¬ 
scription to the bank which it proposed, even in the realization of the vision of the honorable 
and imaginative gentleman from Missouri, (Mr. Benton,) of multiplying gold, in counteraction 
of the law of gravitation, to flow up therapidest of all streams, the current of the Mississippi. Yet 
this bill had found acceptance with a Senate who appreciated it justly, in a sense of the hard 
necessity of laying a foundation on which effective and beneficial legislation might afterwards be 
built up. What must be the perilous efficacy of this veto power, the bare apprehension of whose 
exercise could constrain to such a result! What the tendency to assign the President “a voice 
in the state, potential as the Duke’s!” Mr. Archer had to say, for himself, in relation to this 
proceeding, and desired it to be known, that he was not one of those composing the majority of 
this body, who had “ given in,” in the contest between the office of the Senate and the fear 
of the prerogative of the veto. His “ voice was not for peace.” War! Would that he could 
have borrowed or swayed the voice of his friend from Kentucky, potential in conflict. The 
Senate had been saved from the degradation of the sacrifice, of which, too, the fruit expected, the- 
price had not been realized. 

[Mr. Buchanan said, from his seat: Then you richly deserved to be degraded.] 

We shall sustain no such judgment, continued Mr. Archer, if we are tried by our motives.- 

He owed this justice to the friends in whose action he had not concurred, and whose patriotic 
devotion ought, perhaps, to be considered greater, as evinced by larger sacrifice. They saw the 
country prostrate, paralyzed, desponding, anxious, importunate for legislation, from which it was= 
sanguine of relief. Bad legislation was better than no legislation. The passage of any bill was 
an entering wedge. A bill, which would admit of supplemental legislation, to give it action and* 
use, would yet be a basis on which to found a structure of shelter. 

[Mr. Archer complained here of great exhaustion. Mr. Clay, speaking across the House, 
entreated him to proceed.] 

It should be his endeavor, he said, to do so. The history into which he had been going of the 
influence of this veto power on the legislation of the extra session was not yet completed. The 
construction of the first bank bill, it had been seen, had been constrained—substance and shape 
—by deference to this power. The rejection came. The inquiry ran immediately through the two 
Houses, is legislation on the subject of the currency to be abandoned ! Is no cup of relief to be ex¬ 
tended to the parched and parchinglips of the country ! Can we not send unaltered, “with all its 
imperfections on its head, unanointed, unaneled,” the bill which came from the Executive! Bet¬ 
ter this than no bill; this cannot be refused ! Then came the intimations, not obscure anti 
•whispered, but confident, credited—this is not the bill, though coming from the appropriate Ex¬ 
ecutive Department, which has the favor of the President, which can conciliate the veto. But 
there is the form of a bill, which can do this, and relieve us from our difficulties. The invin¬ 
cible objection of the President is to a bank of discount. His plan is a bank of exchange, with 
a guard against the faculty of discount. Mr. Archer said he had been no party, at any time,, 
to communications with the President, on this or any other subject of legislative action. He did 
not pretend to vouch, therefore, for the validity of the intimations to which he had referred. Ho 
did not undertake to assert that the President had committed himself to the acceptance of a bill for 
a bank of exchange, such as had been sent to him. But the intimations had reached him (Mr. A.)> 
through channels which he was bound to accredit. He had no doubt that the conversations of the 
President had been such as to warrant the intimations—to authorize the confident reliance that he 
would not exercise the veto on such a bill. Too many men of character unquestionable—a portion 
of them sealing the integrityof their statements by voluntary sacrifice of their high offices—another 
portion having every motive to avoid being deceived, and incapable of deceiving—this was evidence 



10 


'too strong to admit of doubt. Let it be, however, that the second bill had been framed on a mere 
supposed and mistaken impression, that it would meet the acceptance of the President. I his was 
•enough for the argument which he (Mr. A.) was employing this fact, with other corresponding 
evidence, to illustrate. He had no wish or purpose to stigmatize the President further than this 
occasion required, of which this effect might result as the incident. It was sufficient for this oc¬ 
casion, that the bill had been fashioned, as was notoriously the case, with reference to a supposed 
•concurrence of the President, under the constraint of this veto power. The proposition was then 
established by this fact, in connexion with other facts in the narrative which he (Mr. A.) had been 
presenting, of the character of our recent legislation—he should say abortive attempts at legisla¬ 
tion—on this interesting subject of the currency—interesting from the solicitude of the People for 
legislation—from the admitted mischief of inaction—that this veto power, on all great subjects of 
diversities of opinion or policy between legislative bodies and the Executive, might be used—pro¬ 
bably will be used—in process of time must come to be used—be converted to a faculty in the 
President, to shape, to frame, to give its “form and pressure,” and essential character to the ac¬ 
tion of the Legislature. Was the working of this power, then, to be regarded with no distrust or 
solicitude'?—no attempts to be received to modify its form—mitigate its action on the other de¬ 
partments of the Government? De Lolme had said, in his Treatise on the English Constitution, 
that the conservative power to the legislative branch, next in value to that over the supplies, was 
the exclusive authority to initiate legislation. If this doctrine was sound, as undoubtedly it was, 
were we to retain unmodified, under our Constitution, a power in the Executive easy and effec¬ 
tively applicable, on the most important class of subjects, (in mischief equivalent to all,) not to in¬ 
itiate only, but to fashion legislation ? 

Mr. Archer proceeded to say that he had a moment past, in referring to the connexion of 
the President with the last bank bill, stated that he had no desire to make allusion to him, save 
for the purpose of illustration to the argument. He had, however, another purpose to indulge. 
The evidence of the portion of the retiring members of the late Cabinet, who had spoken to the 
public on the subject, and that of other gentlemen who had been in communication with the 
President, went to prove that he had accorded his concurrence to a bill of the character of the se¬ 
cond bank bill, had even indicated provisions which he wished to have inserted in it, and invoked the 
aid of some of those with whom he was in conference, to procure the insertion of those provi¬ 
sions. Maintaining the garb and aspect of confidence towards his constitutional advisers, he was 
.said on high authority to have withheld from them all confidence on the subject of his vetoes. 
•Some of the clauses in the bill, the insertion of which he was alleged to have invited, were those 
which he had selected in his Veto Message for the subject of contumelious allusion. Now, he 
-(Mr. A.) repeated that he knew nothing of the verity of these imputations, save from the informa¬ 
tion of others. But these informants were persons standing on a level of character too high to be 
discredited, their statements sustaining each other by concurrence. Taking these statements for 
true, which he (Mr. A.) was obliged to do, they formed, had formed, and would continue to form 
<{until not denied , but disproven , which it would be difficult to do) a bar insuperable to all per¬ 
sonal respect or communication. He regretted, as it was the Chief Magistrate—and as it was a 
Virginian—the “necessity which renounced this separation.” 

He wished it distinctly understood, however, to travel on the wings of the press into whatever 
parts he might be known, that his separation from the President was in no degree founded on his 
vetoes. These acts, assuming the motives alleged for them to be sincere, which Mr. A. believed, 
on the contrary, he commended, and would have been found sustaining the President, notwith¬ 
standing minor differences of opinion which might have arisen between them, but for the circum¬ 
stances to which he had referred. Holding that, whilst service, or, if need were, blood, he did not 
hold that the sacrifice of any particle of conscience or honor was due from a citizen to his country. 
He repeated, therefore, and he did so, because he had a career of three years of public service to 
run with the President, which promised to be fruitful in collisions of opinion, that his vetoes on 
the bank bill had formed, and they should form, no ground of his (Mr. A’s) inculpations of his 
• course. He should be gratified in the disappointment of his apprehension that other grounds 
might be multiplied in future. 

Resuming the line of discussion from which these remarks, in reference to the President, had 
withdrawn him for the moment, Mr. Archer went on to observe that the course of argument he 
•had been pursuing had been designed, and, if successful in the explanation, had been sufficient, 
to establish two propositions, either of them decisive of the question in issue. The first was, that 
the veto power, in the working of our Government, had been found diverted from the design of 
its institution; the second, that it had corne to operate in perversion of that design. It had 
been given as a check on the Legislature, as a guard to the Executive, in the supposition that the 
Legislature required to be checked, the Executive to be guarded. Events had come to demon¬ 
strate the reverse of these propositions—that the guard was due to the Legislature, the check re¬ 
quired on the Executive—that the Executive had become endued with capacity to overbear, to tread 
-down the counterpoising action of the Legislature. 

What did reason, expediency, patriotism, demand? Was it not that the institution be retracted 
■to subjection to its design—be remodelled, so as to restore it to its character of a check on over- 



11 


action of the Legislature 1 This, it was the purpose and the effect of the proposition of 
amendment ©f his friend from Kentucky, under consideration, to do. It was a contrivance to 
relax the spring of the power, become so strong as to make it a disturbing force to the balance of 
>the Constitution, and reduce it to be again a check, but no more than a check, on the legislative 
branch of the Government! 

But a yet further development of evidence, as regarded the hazardous character of this power, 
Lad been presented. Events lnfd demonstrated its convertibility, and its conversion, not into an 
instrument of disproportionate and' undue counteraction of the will of the Legislature, but of effi¬ 
cient and most pernicious control, in exigent conjunctures, an& in the most important departments 
on the office of legislation. Proof was in progress at this moment, in which we were occupied 
with this discussion, that on one of the most important subjects which had ever agitated the coun¬ 
try, and the most imperiously demanding the action of the Legislature, we were to have no ac¬ 
tion, the action dictated by the Executive, or action diluted of efficiency. It was true, that this 
•effect resulted, in the present instance, from the influence of constitutional scruples on the part of 
the head of the Executive. But the influence on the argument was the same, inasmuch as con¬ 
stitutional scruples might be pretended, as well as entertained, and the action of legislation was 
equally open to arrest, and therefore to dictation from the Executive, on other grounds of diversity 
• of opinion, as for constitutional objection. 

But a worse aspect of the case, (said Mr. Archer,) in this view of the argument, is, that the 
mischief referred to, of control, growing out of the possession of the veto power over legislation, 
by the Executive, was not to be regarded as accidental, and only to be apprehended (as might be 
supposed) in the event of the accession of an over energetic head to the Executive. It would 
be sufficient, indeed, for the purpose of the argument, the dependence of the mischief on this event 
only, for guard was demanded and due, in a free State, against the infrequent, and even possible, 
•occurrence of the contingency. 

Was the contingency, however, to be looked to as probably of occurrence so infrequent 1 In 
the dissensions between the Legislature and Executive, which were liable, at every moment, 
to spring up in the progress of legislation, who so likely as a weak man to wreak his resent¬ 
ment on his adversary, hv the obstruction of his wishes'! Who so prompt as a vain man, 
to show his consequence by his contumacy 1 Who so prone as a vindictive man, to make his 
authority subservient to bis passions 1 Or, as a designing man, to make it, or endeavor to 
make it, the instrument of his aspirations! Now, the indulgence ot all these propensities— 
the exhibition of all these phases and peculiarities of impulse and character, were perfectly 
compatible in their co-existence with a character not courageous or resolute—for obstinacy was 
not courage or resolution—and not energetic, for rashness and violence were not energy. He 
thought, indeed, that a weak, vain, vindictive man , foolishly aspiring beyond his proper 
pretensions , was more liable to run into abuses ot his authority, and with the wider mis¬ 
chief from his defect of consideration and prudence, than men ot stronger characters, though worse; 
who waited for the occasions of turning the abuse ot authority to high account, and, practising 
circumspection, ran into no dissensions nor excesses—made no fantastic displays, nor explosions 
of mal-practice or encroachment, till these occasions had arrived, and opened the ioute to theii 
machinations or ambition. 

In any event, said Mr. Archer, and whatever may be the justice or force of this general eio- 
stract reasoning , th ^ fact was now upon us, upon the country, to put beyond question the con¬ 
clusion that it did not require a dangerous man in the Presidency, to present tor exhibition the 
spectacle of legislation crushed, or shaped by the influence of the power of the veto in the Govern¬ 
ment. The gentleman who was the incumbent of the office, it was certain, was not of a political 
strength to command, by personal influence, a single vote in the Senate; and it was said that the 
number of his political friends did not (he spoke from report) exceed seven in the othei House. t 
was a proposition hardlv less contestable, as he (Mr. A.) conceived, that in no possible conjunc¬ 
ture, contingency, or evolution of political events, by any management, on, what was far more 
to BE considered, any luck, could the present President, supposing him to have formed, what 
he (Mr. A.) did not charge, or in future to form, (which, for many reasons, he did not feel au¬ 
thorized to presume.) the purpose “ of aiming at a re-election,” be able to command a single elec¬ 
toral vote. No! If an individual, having popularity, could be found (which an ordinary con¬ 
sideration of prudence made improbable) to lend his name for the second place on such a ticket it 
would be with the little doubtful consequence of sinking the man, not of procuring the support ot 
a vote for the ticket. He expressed (Mr. A. said) only an opinion, to which he met with no dis¬ 
sentient voice ; and the prevalence of such an opinion ought not to be regarded as importing any 
•disparagement to the President; because it might be considered, perhaps, resting entirely on the 
notoriety fulness, and even violence of his commitment in favor of the principle of the reduction 
of the Presidential service to a single term. In this view of the case, the disparagement wou 
be on the part of those who indulged the supposition, of any purpose “ to unfurl a flag, or e en 

to accent unsolicited nomination for re-election. , •. 

However this mi^ht be, the proposition necessary to the argument (and the Senate would 
observe that he (Mr.°A.) was seeking illustration, not disparagement) would hardly be contested. 


12 


that the President was not of a political strength, nor menaced tlit country with the attainment of 
a political strength, to give an aspect of moke portent, as regarded the exercise of executive 
power, than the ordinary run of the Chief Magistrates we might expect to have ,in the progress 
of the Government; yet it was under this President, thus shorn of political influence and personal 
authority, that we had been called to witness the spectacle of the veto as predominant in control,, 
as effective in repressing, more effective in dictating the form of legislation, than under the 
arbitrary domination of General Jackson, “wielding at will the fierce Democracy” of the country. 
The inference (said Mr. Archer) is pregnant and irresistible. This veto power, that the weak 
can turn to extreme mischief, that the strong may wield to utter destruction, is no power to be 
tolerated, and retained unmodified under a free Constitution. 

The argument was contained in a nutshell. In its intendment, the power was not absolute. 
The supersession by a majority of two-thirds, was deemed sufficient to retain it in the character of 
a mere check on intemperate or inconsiderate legislation. Experience had proved this conception, 
mistaken—that, from the force of the spirit of opposition engendered in the vehement collisions 
of party, the controlling and moderating majority of two thirds was never, except in the extremest 
cases of abuse of the power, to be looked to for protection. The honorable gentleman from Penn¬ 
sylvania (Mr. Buchanan) had adverted, with triumph, for the purpose of his argument, that the 
veto was little liable to abuse, to the fact that, in the exercise, it had never met reversal from the- 
majority of two-thirds. The mere desire to thwart the adversary party would, with small excep¬ 
tion, prove a barrier insuperable to the access of this majority. Then the power of the veto had 
become absolute. From a limited , it had grown into a complete and an arbitrary faculty of the- 
suspension of legislative action. This faculty of arbitrary suspension passed inevitably, it had 
been seen, into the dictation of legislation by the Executive ; the end of legislative independence, 
when consummated, and of liberty. The mere practice of waiting on the Executive for per¬ 
mission to legislate, or for the form of legislation, after it had grown into habit, which it soon 
did, was fatal. We were in the beginning of these things, (saiJ Mr. Archer;) found ourselves 
in the outset of this perilous progress. But the end of these things, the terminus of this progress, 
was death—the overthrow of the balance—of course of the vigor, first, and finally of the 
existence of a free Constitution. 

The course of his observations now led him to refer to the able argument of his friend from Penn¬ 
sylvania, (Mr. Buchanan,) which he had crowned with the exclamation of our earliest ancestors,, 
so long accustomed to stir our bosoms, “ nolumus leges Anglse mutari.” He would not profess 
to be behind his friend in sympathetic sensibility with this high-sounding sentiment. He feared,, 
indeed, that it was rather high-sounding than just, and that sober analysis would show our admi¬ 
ration rather to be incited by the force of the sympathy suggested by our relation to the authors,, 
than by any sober dictate of the exercise of the understanding. It would be recollected that this; 
apostrophe conveyed the exclamation of an order of nobility engaged in contest with an arbitrary 
monarch, for their own preservation ; and that the first advance to good government, in England, 
was by change—change by reduction of the authority so cherished of these same barons—this same 
order whence sprung the exclamation, more oppressive to the body of the people than the arbitrary 
rule of the despots before whom it fell, and by, which description of rule it could alone have been? 
subdued. 

And what became of this doctrine of no change in the Constitution, (for that was the import of 
the apostrophe,) when, the disorderly privileges of the nobility subdued, the contests for authority 
came to be between the kings and the commons'! What, had this doctrine been enshrined for 
superstitious observance, had become of the great rebellion and the revolution—the petition of right, 
and the bill of rights, and the habeas corpus, and save the control over the supplies, every solid 
and venerated beam in the imposing fabric of English freedom I 

But he waived the advantage of this view of the subject. He embraced, with his friend, his 
principle of the baronial exclamation, “ let there be no change in the constitution.” The pro¬ 
position which he (Mr. Archer) maintained was, that there had arisen change in the character 
of this veto power. From a provision against intemperance or haste in legislation, it had grown,, 
or was growing, into an implement of factious abuse, of menaced usurpation, and disturbance of 
one of the principles of equipoise in the Constitution. Then he invoked the sentiment—apostro¬ 
phized his friend—called on him to join in the exclamation, and, what was better, in the effort, 
that this menacing change be barred from the Constitution. His friend could’not “ touch a pillar— 
impair a part of the glorious Temple of the Constitution.” Well, be it so. But suppose 
this great dome of the building which overcanopied our heads, from a flaw in a pillar, from 
fracture in a foundation, was found to press on the foundations or the props with dangerous 
heaviness, and this peril was exposed to view, what would my friend do then! Keep the dome in 
position, unvisited by the violating hand of change, or remodel, to prevent its crushing down the 
fabric, to give stability and ornament to which it has been constructed. 

His friend had made appeal to Roman history—the tribunitian power—the origin of the veto 
power in modern Governments, and the bulwark introduced into the Roman Republic for popular 
liberty, against patrician domination. He was afraid it would be found that his friend had not 
considered well his history; he had not followed it down far enough—only looking into the- 


13 


fountain, and not tracing the stream. This tribunitian veto was indeed the popular bulwark, 
in its origin. But what did it become in its later employment—in its middle stage, and in its 
dast An engine of factious disorders and outrage, exceeding far in atrocity, and the calamities 
'which sprung from them, the patrician misrule to which it was intended as the equipoise. Anti 
what was the last stage of this popular bulwark—the close of all ?” Seized by the usurper who 
consolidated despotism, it became, in his hands and those of his successors, the special and most 
'efficacious implement of their atrocious domination. It was by this instrument claiming (as is tha 
fashion of tyrants) the office of the popular representative, rather than the military force, that 
they really controlled the Senate, the only remnant of republican institutions, and affected to rule 
the Stato.. The tribunitian occupied the same grade in the civil department of power as the 
imperial in the military, to which alone the name imperial was originally appropriate. 

Well! what is the inference, said Mr. Ahckhr, I draw from this historical reference ? 
*What the use to which I apply it ? To derive evidence of the important truth in political 
science, that whilst they preserve their name and even aspect, institutions may not only change, 
but reverse their character, employment and operation—that as the trbunitian veto in the Roman 
Republic passed this process of transformation, and ended an appendage of despotism and instru¬ 
ment of power, so the veto power in our Government is in similar transition to the result of 
arming the Executive authority with a new weapon against legislative independence and liberty. 
An absolute veto, and such ours has become, or is becoming, makes, in time, an absolute 
Executive. 

His friend from Pennsylvania had been as little successful, (if he might be allowed to say so) 
in the support he had sought for his argument from English as from Roman history. The argu¬ 
ment he had to meet, rested on the undue and injurious force which it was the tendency of the 
veto power to give to the Executive authority. Now, in what way did he derive counterpoise 
to this argument from English history ? Why, he repelled the imputations on the power, from the 
fact which he alleged, that the exercise—attribute as it was of Royal authority in England—had 
been forborne for an hundred and fifty years, with the exception of two instances, w hich he speci¬ 
fied. And he insisted on the inference from this non-user against the liability to abuse, or any 
•dangerous character of the power. 

Now the inference of others from this non user had been exactly the reverse of that of his honor¬ 
able friend, that it was a power of a character so invidious in the exercise that it had been deemed 
more expedient to introduce and have recourse to a practice of corrupting the Legislature, to ob¬ 
tain a control on legislation ; that this engine of control, even in that strong Government, wore an 
aspect of vigor too imposing to warrant the continuance of its employment in that liberty-loving 
Hand, amid that people ever jealous of their legislative safeguards. How curious, too, were the 
examples which his friend had introduced in aid of an argument in denial of liability ol this veti> 
power to mischief or danger. 

The first of these examples had been the rejection of the septennial act by William IIT. Now, 
what was the character of this example '! The English people, enjoying only the semblance of a 
popular representation, (for a septennial tenure created little more than semblance,) achieved a 
great political revolution, overturning a long-established dynasty—convulsing their state in vindi¬ 
cation of their liberties. Amid the fruits of this successful effort, they desire to have included the 
beneficial reality, or an approach to it, of the only effective guaranty for liberty—an effective rep¬ 
resentation. But a foreigner who, as the instrument of their triumph, they had placed upon their 
•throne, makes the discovery that too immediate a control of the people over the Government is not 
a convenient or pleasant arrangement of the authorities of Government to the monarch, on whom 
it pats a bridle in favor of the people. A brave though not a bad man, he employs the repellant 
energy of the veto power, and the people are remitted by its exercise to their original condition, of 
partial in place of effective control over their Government. And this was one of the instances 
which his friend had to adduce in favor of the innocuous character of this power—one of the 
proofs to testify in its vindication ! 

The other example was no less pregnant of instruction. After an age of bigoted and abhorrent 
•divestiture of five or six millions of people in Ireland of the first right of conscience and nature— 
the freedom of religious opinion—a divestiture enforced in all the most shocking modes of the 
most detestable form of civil domination—it appears from this authority for his argument, said 
Mr. A., of my honorable friend, that the conscience of the British Legislature became enlightened 
to the atrocity of this odious subjugation of their fellow-subjects, and produced a proposition not 
•to surrender—that was not th# import of the measure proposed—but somewhat to relax its rigor 
and abate its odiousness. This measure of just atonement and relief encountered, it seems, by 
•the statement of my honorable friend, (he did not, Mr. A. said, remember the fact,) the veto of 
<the contracted and ignorant bigot who sat at the time on the British throne. And this is the fur¬ 
ther instance which my friend has produced from British history, of the blameless aspect in which 
sthis veto power in that Government must be regarded. 

[Mr. Buchanan here rose to explain. He had cited these instances, not to show that the ex¬ 
ercise of the power by the British Throne had been praiseworthy, but on the contrary to contrast 
its exercise by an hereditary sovereign, and by an Executive elected by the People. J 



14 


Mr. Archer resumed. He was availing himself of the instances which had been furnished' 
him, to show the operation and character of this power, as an Executive instrument, where the- 
exercise was final, and the power beyond control, as it was made by the British Constitution,, 
and was becoming in practice under our own. Mr. A. was not aware of other instances of its ex¬ 
ercise, in recent British history. These were sufficient to convict the power, though slumbering,, 
of being perilous, and unfit to be retained unqualified in a free Constitution. 

These instances excepted, the power had not been exerted in England for an hundred and fifty 
years. Well, what was the conclusion? In all the vicissitudes, mutations, and disorders of party 
contention, and changing ministries, (and they have been abundant,) in that kingdom, this 
power is regarded of a character which no party dare invoke, and no minister (convenient as the 
resoit must frequently have been) may presume to exercise. Would his honorable friend draw 
the inference—announce the doctrine to the country, that the power which was too strong for the 
English Constitution was weak enough for ours? If so, with all respect, he was condemned to 
difference from his friend, in inference and opinion, on the subject. 

Would any be led to suppose, from the earnestness w-ith which he advocated the proposition' 
of correction of this veto power, that he had any impression of the success of the amendment un¬ 
derconsideration ? For that, as would be seen presently, he did not look to vote himself, as he had 
an amendment to suggestto it. But would any suppose that he had anticipated the success of tho 
proposition in either form? Not at all. He was aware, fully, that there was no prospect, scarcely 
possibility, of the adoption, ever, of any amendment to the Constitution—this now proposed, or any 
other. Although he was in favor of an amendment on this subject of the veto power, and if the 
office were confided to him, of introducing amendments, would, perhaps, have some others to sug¬ 
gest, he was entirely willing, nay, truly pleased to compound, for the loss ef these, in the glad ; 
conviction that the loss was more than compensated by the fact that the Constitution was almost 
certainly placed beyond the reach of change or modification. Thank Heaven that it was so ! It 
was not relevant to the discussion to go into the reasons, but the proposition was the subject of 
an almost general conviction, and the prevalence of this conviction would have strong tendency to 
confirm the auspicious consequence. 

He thought that the spititof the time gave omen that were amendment available to the Consti¬ 
tution, it would be the deleterious only which would have prospect of success, and that they might 
be expected successively to open the way for others of the same character; we had confirmatory 
evidence ot this supposition in the successive Constitutions of our new States as they had acceded", 
to the Union. There was small danger in affirming, of each, in the series of the past, and w r ouId 
be as small in predicting of the series which was to follow, that every one would be more deeply 
imbued with the spirit of Democracy—that was to say, would be less Republican—afford less effec¬ 
tive guaranties to minority interests, and a sound civil order, than the predecessor. The case 
would be like that of Satan passing to light—the first progress attended with extreme difficulty 
but this trod, prepared the path over which the whole fraternity of the damned found ready passage 
thereafter, 4 and always. (A laugh.) 

Why, then, it would naturally be asked, had he exhibited so earnest a zeal in the discussion, 
and recommendation of the present proposition of amendment? He had very strong reason to 
impel—to sustain—to animate him in this course. Ours was a country in which Opinion reigned 
mistress. After the contentions and the distractions—the evolutions and the revulsions of the 
party strifes, which tear, and were destined always to tear our bosoms, this overruling author¬ 
ity gathers instruction from the conflicts, and in the event asserts herself supreme. This veto 
power cannot be extracted from the Constitution—none can. But let the People be advised of 
the manner in which it has worked—of the uhuse to which it may ho perverted—of the change 
of character it has assumed—ot the peril which may grow from this change—of the facility with 
which encroachment, in the discharge of high power becomes usage, and takes first the name 
of precedent, then the authority of law. Let all this be iterated and reiterated—illustrated by- 
examples sustained by proofs—and thus insidious power, though not expelled from the Con¬ 
stitution, will have its prurience to mischief bridled by apprehensiveness—its vigor struck with 1 
salutary paralysis, though not subdued. An hundred and fifty years may pass over our country 
too, as over England, before the power may exhibit itself in outrage, or again make itself the 
source of agitation, the subject of clamor, or the object of apprehension. His honorable friend 
from Kentucky had planted, in this discussion, a germ which, enlarging its stem, throwing out 
its branches, hearing fruit, will become a “tree of knowledge of good and ill” to his country. 

Mr. Archer then, before concluding, proceeded to state the charactdl and grounds of the amend¬ 
ment which he designed, at a future stage of the discussion, to propose to that of his friend from 
Kentucky, (Mr. Clat,) and which he hoped might be accepted by him. It was to the effect of 
carrying over the proposed reversal by a majority, as proposed by 7 Mr. Clat, to another session of 
Congress. 

Could the amendment be adopted in this form, said Mr. A., in conclusion, this veto power 
would be restored to the office designed by the Constitution, not of a bar, but a floodgate, retain¬ 
ing the current of popular sentiment till it eddied, but not long enough for a wasting refluence, 
nor to collect force for bursting forward with dangerous impetuosity. 






































































































































































































































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